Once again ResetEra Banned me.....for not caring about all people being all white in Squadron 42?

[Bat Vader]

Banning someone for not caring is a pretty over the top type of thing to do that just seems unnecessary and wrong. Honestly I don't care if a cast from a game or movie is all White, all African-American, all Asian, etc. The only thing I care about is if the actors hired can do their jobs and act well.

 

[Dalisclock]

I can't help but think "not caring" is the appropriate response for Star Citizen. I'll start caring about the diversity issue if it looks like they will release the game at all, which is by far the bigger issue.

As it stands, the only effect their whitewashing has is making non-whites less likely to waste their money on this thing.

After reading this thread, I'm kinda thinking along the same lines. Sure, there are points to be made but we're also talking about a game that's half a decade in production and still in alpha with release date in sight. The diversity(or lack thereof) of the trailer for a game that might never even come out and will very likely be a total disappointment with it does is really low on the list of things that bother me about this whole thing.

 

[SweetShark]

I can't help but think "not caring" is the appropriate response for Star Citizen. I'll start caring about the diversity issue if it looks like they will release the game at all, which is by far the bigger issue.

As it stands, the only effect their whitewashing has is making non-whites less likely to waste their money on this thing.

Yes, however if you make it known that you are not care, you automatically assume the worst for you.
So the next time I just need to not answer at all I guess.
I will be better post whatever ResetEra discussing here.
All of you are cool in my book. I REALLY missed that place.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Okay, so one more time, because this is literally going nowhere.

I'd like to think that if a non-white person went to buy the game, their level of interest wouldn't be predicated on the skin colour of its protagonists. Same reason why if a white person went to buy a game with a non-white cast, their level of interest would seemingly be un-predicated.

Well, you can "like to think that" all you want, but it isn't true.

Ethnic minority actors in Hollywood can really struggle to get high profile work, precisely because studios and casting agents are baked into a long historical tradition of believing that white audiences won't go to see a film unless it has a white lead or a majority white cast (and while I'd love to say they're wrong, they're probably not). Many, many people of colour working in Hollywood have spoken out about the difficulties they have faced landing high-profile roles because of the excuse that "colour doesn't sell".

Earlier, I praised Hollywood for the fact that most Hollywood movies do have people of colour in starring roles, but what I didn't talk about was the fact that almost all of those roles are supporting, and that many of them play on ethnic stereotypes and that few of the actors cast in them will ever achieve careers equivalent to the big name stars, who are almost all white. Again, Hollywood isn't perfect, but it's still better than this.

What artists do or don't do is irrelevant. Going back to your list, if there was whitewashing of Black Panther or CRA, then that would be an issue. In contrast, an all-white cast in Quiet Place means nothing, because far as I'm aware, race is irrelevant to the story.

The story doesn't matter. Again, it's a fictional story which never really happened and which was made up by a writer in the present day. The reason I'm not holding it to the same standard is not because race doesn't matter to the story, but because the cast is very small and had to look similar enough that the audience could believe they were related. They didn't have many opportunities for casting a diverse range of actors. Sure, they still defaulted by having the entire cast be white, but it's more excusable than if you had a cast of 12 or 15 actors playing unrelated roles.

Except there's no evidence that RSI "can't stand to have non-white people" bar your own projections.

Again, it's a reasonable assumption when they didn't cast any.

Okay, you want to talk about the fewest contingencies? Then what's more likely? That:

a) The UEE is racist, and enforces that policy of racial segregation, that RSI is a bunch of closest racists, and we've somehow missed all this up to this point?

b) That the "all white cast" is just a combination of production factors, ranging from trying to get back Hamill, to subconcious bias, to meritocracy?

It's B. I'm glad we're in agreement. Now let's take that seriously going forward.

I've no idea why you're even interested in fiction if the basis of it is "none of it's real, none of it matters, all that matters is what the designers do."

You've got this completely the wrong way around.

I think critically about media precisely because I am interested in it. The ability to think critically about media is, in my opinion, incredibly important not just to understanding it but also, in many cases, to fully appreciating it. Art becomes more interesting when you understand that it is the product of one or more artists who created it, because it becomes an insight into that artist and, to some extent, into the culture which produced it and the audience to which it was aimed. You gain a fuller understanding, and therefore a fuller appreciation of something by understanding where it comes from and why it exists than treating it as a perfect jewel that fell from heaven.

There is no problem with getting absorbed in media or suspending disbelief in order to enjoy it. There is a problem with refusing to see fictional media as what it is, a fictional product created by one or more artists to achieve objectives or goals at the time of creation (generally, to entertain people and make money). It isn't real, it may create the illusion of being real in order to entertain an audience, but that is an illusion, and we lose nothing and gain a lot by being conscious of the artistry and work which goes into creating that illusion, and by holding that to the same standards of appreciation and criticism as the "story".

And if they did fuck up? So what?

Then they fucked up.

Again, you seem to think there is something more to this than there actually is.

Fine. I'm going to skip option 1 because your response to it would just be "but it ain't real!"

We can talk about things that aren't. But again, we should treat them critically and recognise that they were produced by an artist, rather than being self-contained portals into alternate realities which can be judged purely on their own rules. The reason I keep reminding you that fiction isn't real is because you're treating it as if it is, and as if that functions as a defence of the artists, companies and industry which creates that fiction.

Option 2...okay, you start off reasonable, but you go from "likely unconcious racial bias" to suggesting that the game's creators and fanbase are inherently racist, to suggesting that non-white actors were "deprived." Since you're so fond of Star Trek, I'll quote Picard and say "The road from legitimate suspicion to rampant paranoia is very much shorter than we think."

Having unconscious racial bias is a form of racism. Again, it's not the worst form of racism, but it's not something which can't be criticised. There doesn't need to be anything more to this than subconscious racial bias for this to be a) an example of racism and b) something we should talk about.

Sure, everyone's a little bit racist, but that doesn't make racism okay.

Except race shouldn't be important.

Why not?

Also, why do you get to make that decision?

If you're a black teenager who has to worry about being killed by police because you walked into the wrong neighbourhood, then race is important to you. If you're a south asian actor who only gets offered ethnic bit parts as "terrorist #3" or "corner shop owner" because casting agents don't think audiences want to see you playing other roles, then race is important to you. Noone should have to pretend that race isn't important to them when it's having an impact on their lives.

So basically you sidestep the point entirely. I never claimed it was for their benefit, I claimed it was irrelevant to them.

Okay, so my argument was that media is created by one or more artists or creators to be consumed by an audience, and in that sense it's a work of communication. I used a (very simplified, but let's carry on with it) metaphor of a conversation to illustrate something about this relationship between the artist, who creates the work of fiction, and the audience, who consumes it because they enjoy it. Imagine the artist as a storyteller and the audience as sitting with them around a campfire. The artist is talking to the audience, and the audience is listening and enjoying being transported to this fictional world by the artists words.

You claimed that Star Citizen isn't a conversation in this way, because its characters aren't part of that conversation. It's "irrelevant" to them.

Now, perhaps when I put it like that, you can see the problem. The characters are part of that fictional world. They are created by the artist for the benefit and enjoyment of the audience. They, and their entire world, is the subject of the conversation, the story which is being told. Their world only exists in the mind and imagination of the artist, and is being communicated to the audience through the words they are saying (or, to step out of the metaphor, through the technical art of media). That's why they aren't part of the conversation, not because they really exist in this alternate reality whose rules differ from our own, but because they aren't real.

In order to be critical of art, we need to be able to step out of the perspective of the fictional characters in a story, and to be part of that conversation around a campfire. We need to ask questions like who this story is aimed at? Why it is entertaining to these people at this time? Who are these people anyway? This isn't an anti-artistic position, it's actually kind of essential to creating good art. If every story is a special and perfect jewel, a self-contained reality which we aren't allowed to criticise because that might break the illusion that it is real and these characters and setting really exist, then we're doing a huge disservice to art. An artist isn't a wizard, what they're doing isn't some feat of profound magic which can only be done by a superhuman being, they are just a person communicating with another person using a technical art which they have learned and developed (often through criticism, and through understanding why some things work and other things don't), and we don't need a set of limitations or rules which tell us what we are and are not allowed to criticise about that process.

 

[SweetShark]

Also I want to say sorry to the others who put so much energy to the Thread, but sadly I don't speak very good English and sometimes I get lost with the conversations you have.

 

[Hawki]

Well, you can "like to think that" all you want, but it isn't true.

Ethnic minority actors in Hollywood can really struggle to get high profile work, precisely because studios and casting agents are baked into a long historical tradition of believing that white audiences won't go to see a film unless it has a white lead or a majority white cast (and while I'd love to say they're wrong, they're probably not). Many, many people of colour working in Hollywood have spoken out about the difficulties they have faced landing high-profile roles because of the excuse that "colour doesn't sell".

Earlier, I praised Hollywood for the fact that most Hollywood movies do have people of colour in starring roles, but what I didn't talk about was the fact that almost all of those roles are supporting, and that many of them play on ethnic stereotypes and that few of the actors cast in them will ever achieve careers equivalent to the big name stars, who are almost all white. Again, Hollywood isn't perfect, but it's still better than this.

Okay, few points:

-I stated that I'd like to think the consumer wouldn't purchase a product based purely on the colour of the characters' skin. You've responded by giving information on the producers. The producers might suppose the needs of the consumer, but look at this very thread - how many people say they don't care? This entire thread began when Shark was banned for saying that he doesn't care about skin colour (which shows how insane the world's become, but whatever)

-Everything you'd said about Hollywood is probably true...except RSI isn't Hollywood. RSI has existed for less than a decade, and in your own post, you state that PoCs have complained about conditions. Now, you might claim (reasonably) of 'cross-pollination' of attitudes, except unlike your Hollywood example, we haven't heard any complaints. If there were, I'd expect an investigation and whatnot, but until that happens, burden of proof and presumption of innocence have to remain.

The story doesn't matter. Again, it's a fictional story which never really happened and which was made up by a writer in the present day. The reason I'm not holding it to the same standard is not because race doesn't matter to the story, but because the cast is very small and had to look similar enough that the audience could believe they were related. They didn't have many opportunities for casting a diverse range of actors. Sure, they still defaulted by having the entire cast be white, but it's more excusable than if you had a cast of 12 or 15 actors playing unrelated roles.

That's a...very disturbing way at looking at art.

So basically, the "story doesn't matter" (despite being a work of fiction), and all that does matter is the ethnicity of those taking part in the story.

It's B. I'm glad we're in agreement. Now let's take that seriously going forward.

If you agree with B, you'd see there's little reason to take it forward.

I'm trying to take you seriously, but it's becoming harder and harder.

You've got this completely the wrong way around.

I think critically about media precisely because I am interested in it. The ability to think critically about media is, in my opinion, incredibly important not just to understanding it but also, in many cases, to fully appreciating it.

Except you're NOT thinking critically.

Here we have a product before us. A product where the majority of the cast is white. The uncritical view is "racism." The critical, more nuanced view, is asking questions:

-Is race relevant to the setting?

-Is RSI actively racist?

And so on.

Art becomes more interesting when you understand that it is the product of one or more artists who created it, because it becomes an insight into that artist and, to some extent, into the culture which produced it and the audience to which it was aimed. You gain a fuller understanding, and therefore a fuller appreciation of something by understanding where it comes from and why it exists than treating it as a perfect jewel that fell from heaven.

No-one needs to "understand" that art is the product of one or more people. That isn't some great insight.

Also, while there's undoubtedly art that functions as a window into the artist's worldview and/or the culture behind it...Star Citizen isn't really such a piece of art. You want to know why Star Citizen was created? To create a spiritual successor to the Wing Commander series (and similar games). Chris Roberts stated as such. There's little need to extrapolate behind why Star Citizen was created. And as far as the culture of the day...Star Citizen isn't engaging in that culture. Star Citizen is set nearly 1000 years from now, and is aimed at a small market of the "gamer" audience - people with high tech PCs who grew up on space sims. That's a sub-culture of a sub-culture. Sure, there might be newcomers to the game without a background in space sims, but there's no great mystery as to who the game was for.

So, on one hand, if we're applying critical thought to Star Citizen, we know why it was made, and who it was made for. A basic understanding of the setting shows it's far removed from our times, and isn't in any way trying to reflect our times via allegory. You can claim that the all white cast is relevant, but it really, really isn't. Not in the context of the game in-universe, and not in the context of its production out of universe.

Then they fucked up.

Again, you seem to think there is something more to this than there actually is.

What? They fucked up (if it even counts as a fuck up). That's all there is.

You're the one trying to claim there's something more, in a wider cultural context.

We can talk about things that aren't. But again, we should treat them critically and recognise that they were produced by an artist, rather than being self-contained portals into alternate realities which can be judged purely on their own rules.

Except realities CAN be judged on their own rules.

We don't expect fictional settings to be a 1:1 representation of our own world.

The reason I keep reminding you that fiction isn't real is because you're treating it as if it is, and as if that functions as a defence of the artists, companies and industry which creates that fiction.

I don't know where I gave you the impression I treated Star Citizen as being real. Again, you're taking an extreme Doyalist position.

I've always been willing to look at both the production side of things and the in-universe side of things. You, on the other hand, focus entirely on the former, and completely ignore the latter.

Why not?

Because people shouldn't be judged on the content of their skin.

Also, why do you get to make that decision?

So basically, by saying that race shouldn't matter, I, apparently like Sweet Shark, am a horrible person.

Jesus Christ...

If you're a black teenager who has to worry about being killed by police because you walked into the wrong neighbourhood, then race is important to you. If you're a south asian actor who only gets offered ethnic bit parts as "terrorist #3" or "corner shop owner" because casting agents don't think audiences want to see you playing other roles, then race is important to you. Noone should have to pretend that race isn't important to them when it's having an impact on their lives.

Yes, and? That's an example of why race shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter because when it does, you get the problems you describe above.

Okay, so my argument was that media is created by one or more artists or creators to be consumed by an audience, and in that sense it's a work of communication.

And I completely disagree with that assertion.

Art is usually one way communication. You can have two way communication at times, but one can read a book, or see a film, or watch a play, or do anything like that without engaging in any kind of conversation with the artist, figuratively or literally.

I used a (very simplified, but let's carry on with it) metaphor of a conversation to illustrate something about this relationship between the artist, who creates the work of fiction, and the audience, who consumes it because they enjoy it. Imagine the artist as a storyteller and the audience as sitting with them around a campfire. The artist is talking to the audience, and the audience is listening and enjoying being transported to this fictional world by the artists words.

Except in that method of storytelling, the conversation is two way.

When one engages in a fictional world, they aren't engaging with the creator of it by default.

You claimed that Star Citizen isn't a conversation in this way, because its characters aren't part of that conversation. It's "irrelevant" to them.

Now, perhaps when I put it like that, you can see the problem.

No, I don't.

The characters aren't representative of the modern world. The setting isn't representative of the modern world. The game wasn't designed to represent the wider world, or engage with the wider world.

The characters are part of that fictional world. They are created by the artist for the benefit and enjoyment of the audience. They, and their entire world, is the subject of the conversation, the story which is being told. Their world only exists in the mind and imagination of the artist, and is being communicated to the audience through the words they are saying (or, to step out of the metaphor, through the technical art of media). That's why they aren't part of the conversation, not because they really exist in this alternate reality whose rules differ from our own, but because they aren't real.

...and?

You're kind of making my point for me.

In order to be critical of art, we need to be able to step out of the perspective of the fictional characters in a story, and to be part of that conversation around a campfire. We need to ask questions like who this story is aimed at? Why it is entertaining to these people at this time? Who are these people anyway?

All true. Except you also need to consider the in-universe perspective as well.

https://www.thefandomentals.com/watsonian-and-doylist-the-eternal-struggle/

Honestly, I'm just too tired at this point to try and explain this any further, so I'm going to link to an article explaining why both perspectives are important.

To take a pertinent example from the article:

Some argue, from a Doylist perspective, that the unfortunate implications of Korra, a woman of colour, saying that she ?needed to suffer? for the sake of her development outweighs any Watsonian function of her learning to relate to all people in her role as the Avatar. Or any meaning the character herself takes from that journey.

Here, we see the worth of the Watsonian perspective balancing the Doylist one. The Doylist perspective might insinuate racism. The Watsonian would point out that racism is a non-issue in the Avatar setting, that while different ethnicities exist in the Avatar setting (all of which are PoCs by our own standards), the conflict of said setting has never been predicated on said ethnicities (unless maybe you squint at certain comments in Book 1: Water). So, to claim that LoK is "racist" is an absurd claim because there's nothing in-universe backing it up.

Again, Star Citizen is in a similar perspective. The allegations of racism can only come from the Doylist perspective. The Watsonian perspective would point out that there's nothing in-universe correlating with that. In contrast, if you look at stuff like Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia, asserting the existence of (subtle) racism is easier, because there's both Doylist and Watsonian evidence for it.

If every story is a special and perfect jewel, a self-contained reality which we aren't allowed to criticise because that might break the illusion that it is real and these characters and setting really exist, then we're doing a huge disservice to art.

No-one's saying that you can't criticize art. But I think it's reasonable to apply criticism intelligently and in the context of the art itself.

Art has to be evaluated on its own terms. To cite a personal example, I used to be part of a writing group. Members of the writing group would often write on subject matter I cared little for. Ergo, in such examples, I always specified (paraphrased) "I'm really not a fan of this type of fiction, so you should know I come from a place of bias. That said, I'm going to evaluate it as objectively as I can."

Again, art should be judged on its own terms, not on the values of the consumer.

Also I want to say sorry to the others who put so much energy to the Thread, but sadly I don't speak very good English and sometimes I get lost with the conversations you have.

TBH, I don't know if I have the energy (or time) to keep doing this.

 

[Terminal Blue]

-I stated that I'd like to think the consumer wouldn't purchase a product based purely on the colour of the characters' skin. You've responded by giving information on the producers.

If you'll look carefully, my point was that there is a widespread belief among producers that if you put non-white characters in your media, it won't sell to white audiences. Now, I personally suspect this belief is less true than those producers think it is, but it is an argument against this view of the world where audiences simply don't care about the ethnicity of characters or actors, because I think that view is naive at best, and kind of reprehensible when it's used to argue that it's completely acceptable to only cast white people provided you don't publicly say that the reason you did so is because you hate non-white people, as it is being used here.

-Everything you'd said about Hollywood is probably true...except RSI isn't Hollywood.

True. Hollywood casts people of colour in its films sometimes.

That's a...very disturbing way at looking at art.

So basically, the "story doesn't matter" (despite being a work of fiction), and all that does matter is the ethnicity of those taking part in the story.

The story could have been written for characters of any ethnicity. Heck, it could have been about a family of anthropomorphic raccoons, because it's a fictional made up story and the writer can do anything they want in a fictional made up story. The decision to have the characters be white is not a response to any need imposed by the story, it's a calculated, deliberate decision motivated by the need to produce a film which will reach an audience and make money.

I doubt there is intentional racism at work in that decision. However, there will at some point have been an intentional, calculated decision about who the target audience demographic were, and how to cast the film in order to appeal to as broad a cross section of those demographics as possible, and they will have specifically decided to cast white actors in order to avoid the appearance that the film was aimed at black audiences because then white people might be turned off from seeing it. I can guarantee you that conversation happened at some point during the making of the film, because when you have a film that costs multi-millions of dollars, you think about stuff like that.

If you agree with B, you'd see there's little reason to take it forward.

So, you think subconscious bias is okay and not something we should ever think about, even if it results in profound inequality of outcomes for people who just happen to have different skin colour?

Okay.

Except you're NOT thinking critically.

If you went to a university course on film or game design, and you tried to argue that we shouldn't examine media as a constructed artform, but instead should merely concern ourselves with checking the story for internal consistency. If you went in and argued that you can't talk about how a film is impacted by its casting decisions, only by what it says about the setting and universe in which it takes place, they would fail you, because that is not a critical approach to media, that is expecting media to have a special exemption from criticism.

You want to know why Star Citizen was created? To create a spiritual successor to the Wing Commander series (and similar games).

Okay. That's not really an answer. Why would someone want to do that?

Star Citizen is set nearly 1000 years from now,

How is that setting communicated and established within the medium itself, given that the audience doesn't live 1000 years from now and is thus unfamiliar with this setting?

So.. to cut to the chase rather than just asking a bunch of questions like this, you seem to be assuming that the setting is divorced from the actual creative decisions which bring it into existence, which isn't true. Star citizen is set nearly a thousand years from now, but the target audience of "gamers" lives in the present. If they are going to enjoy the game or its story, it has to communicate to them in terms they can understand and relate to and which are enjoyable for them. That is, after all, why the game is being made, for those "gamers" to enjoy.

Another thing you seem to be assuming is that only explicit, textual themes can convey information, and that "low art" (i.e. any kind of art which is designed purely for escapism or to facilitate a feeling of enjoyment) is incapable of communicating ideas. Thus, the fact that Star Citizen is a sequel to Wing Commander and doesn't have an explicit message or theme is taken by you as evidence that it isn't saying anything about race, or about the present day. But stop and look at the trailer for a second. Look at all the things which correspond directly to things which exist today. Human beings look the same (except really white), they present the same, they have similar hairstyles and similar makeup, they are members of a military organisation which is like our military organisations, they wear uniforms which are similar to our uniforms, they have ranks which are identical to our ranks, they speak modern English and have similar speech patterns, they use the same expressions, they have similar gestures to convey similar emotions, their military communications protocol is similar, their interior spaces and architecture have a comprehensible design, the ships themselves look and move like aircraft (or sometimes, like oceangoing ships), their guns look like modern guns, their armour and spacesuits look like modern body armour and flight suits, their HUD and interfaces look like ours, their large spaceships have bridges like our ocean ships, and are controlled with consoles which look like our consoles.

The idea that this is an alien setting, and that nothing here is familiar or reminiscent of our world, and thus that it has nothing to say about our world, is completely missing the very, very obvious. I would think that, in a thousand years, if humanity has survived and is travelling the stars, their society would be like nothing we can imagine, at least as alien to our own as the 11th century, but what is being depicted here basically is our society. Military science fiction as a genre is not divorced from the present at all in terms of its social perspective. It's very much about the present day. Starship Troopers isn't really about fighting bugs on Pluto, it's explicitly about the Cold War.

What? They fucked up (if it even counts as a fuck up). That's all there is.

Yup.

Turns out, fucking up is a bad thing to do, and we are allowed to talk about it.

Except realities CAN be judged on their own rules.

We don't expect fictional settings to be a 1:1 representation of our own world.

But we also expect them to be fun and comprehensible, and to deal with situations and ideas that we understand and can relate to.

Yes, and? That's an example of why race shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter because when it does, you get the problems you describe above.

The problem already exists. One piece of evidence that it exists is how difficult it seems to be for our media to include or deal with people who are not white.

The idea that the only way to deal with this situation is to shut up and pretend it isn't happening because otherwise you're acknowledging that race matters is a ludicrous kind of victim blaming. Race does matter when you are the victim of racism. Trying to shut people up when they point out the ways in which they are victimized, or trying to defend people from even basic criticism when they fuck up merely because you think they didn't mean it, is not an anti-racist position, it's actually kind of facilitating and aiding racism.

Art is usually one way communication. You can have two way communication at times, but one can read a book, or see a film, or watch a play, or do anything like that without engaging in any kind of conversation with the artist, figuratively or literally.

I mean.. I did say it was a one-way conversation. I honestly think that's kind of an oversimplification, but I don't really want to start an discussion about it so let's let it stand.

Except in that method of storytelling, the conversation is two way.

I think I made it clear that it wasn't when I described one as speaking and the other as listening, but if you want to debate the terms of my metaphor now..

...and?

So, you cannot have a real conversation (even a one-way conversation) with a fictional character. The artist is not creating a story in order to communicate with a fictional character, they're doing it communicate with the audience.

That's why Star Citizen has all these elements which are identical to things in the modern world. It's not because the fictional characters need it to be that way, it's because the artist (and hopefully the audience) prefers it that way. If the artist and/or audience also prefers everyone in the story to be white, then it isn't really relevant that race doesn't matters in the setting. It matters to the people who actually exist: the artist and the audience.

All true. Except you also need to consider the in-universe perspective as well.

I do, when its relevant.

But when we're talking about things like casting decisions, I'm not going to consider the in-universe perspective because there isn't one. The characters are not aware that they are being played by actors who were cast for the role. In the context of this discussion, constantly bringing up in universe perspectives as a defence of things which are not in-universe is actually really annoying. It's derailing, frankly, it's constantly demanding that I look at real things which actually matter from the perspective of a fictional character.

I will happily debate to you about character motivations and in-universe worldbuilding when the stakes are not whether or not people with the "wrong" colour skin get to appear in media.

You know what, I hate people who post links to youtube in lieu of an arugment, but I'm just going to post this here, because it describes what is happening here quite concisely (URL because the forum doesn't seem to like youtube links right now).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxV8gAGmbtk

In short, if you're defending a piece of media from criticism of its authorial or representational practices by pointing out that it is internally consistent, then you've missed the point of the criticism and you aren't really responding to it at all. It's a weak argument.

You cannot defend the creators of Avatar from allegations of racism by arguing that racism doesn't exist in Avatar, and therefore racism can't be real. That's not the clash of two valid perspectives, it's someone pointing out a potentially serious problem with real life, and being shut down on the basis that if they lived in a fictional setting their argument wouldn't be true.

I'm also going to repeat a point I made earlier. Watsonian arguments are just for fun. They can help to facilitate enjoyment or understanding of fictional media, but if you bring them out in a university, or any setting where critical thinking is required, it's not going to go well. You need to be able to separate things that are real and things that are not real, which is not to say you can't have fun imagining that things are real when they aren't, but the boundary needs to stay intact. If your argument is crossing that boundary, then you're not thinking critically. Indeed, I would argue that the whole point of the Watsonian and Doylist distinction is to keep reality and fiction separate, not to put fiction on an equal footing to reality.

 

[SweetShark]

So There is a Thread on ResetEra which a user complain that all the main characters/well-known actors are only white and there is no diversity between them.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-...k-of-diversity-depicted-in-squadron-42.74879/

Well, I made the mistake to say in general I don't care so much because I care mostly about the main core of the game: Get a Ship and Kill Aliens in Space.

It sounds like it's a group of actual racists who want to push their racial ideals onto others. You're better off without associating with people like that...what was that famous Mark Twain quote [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/539027-never-argue-with-stupid-people-they-will-drag-you-down]: "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

What's happened in the current zeitgeist, these social-justice types have absurd notions of "diversity", "equity", "inclusivity" and some other buzzwords. They brand anything not meeting their standards sexist, racist, homophobic, bigoted, nazi, etc, etc. The reality is, they are the bigots who see the world thru a lens of skin colour, sex and the rest and claim any time something doesn't have equal men, women, white, black, whatever it's because of racism. These same racists tried the same thing with Witcher 3 and Kingdom Come Deliverance and got nowhere.

If you treat people fairly and equally without judging them based on skin colour or whatever arbitrary identifier, then you are not a racist and automatically better than the people described in the thread. Ignore them, let them froth.

There were quite a few YouTube videos regarding The Witcher series for Netflix when it was announced that Ciri would be black or asian, where several blacks and asians chimed in on the comments to voice how stupid it was.

?They should stay true to the lore?, ?Imagine if Black Panther wasn?t actually black?, or ?Why not make a new series about black/asian folklore of it?s that big of a deal?? were some prominent examples of the feedback tone.

Identity politics have done nothing to unite this country, and are basically a modern form of segregation. When minorities themselves understand this then we are clearly on the wrong path.

 

[McElroy]

I read the thread and, wow, what a trip!

Spoiler: SweetShark posts compilation

Sorry, but I don't see where is the problem.
It just happens the actors they had to be white I guess.

Now that I think about it, is it 100% sure all the actors who use the voices on these models to be white?
I am not talking about the well-known actors of course.
Or are they all well-known actors?

Also the Devs can anything they like.
Their game, their rules.

No offence to the others of course.

I put effort doing others things, so sorry for making you angry.

What if in this sci-fi world only the white people have supremacy? it is a possibility.
Unlikely, but you never know.

Also don't get so serious about it. it is just a game. I never think so much for a game which you travel with a spaceship in space and kill lizard like aliens.
That I am trying to say is, relax. It is just a game, again. I don't want to start something. I just want to talk calmly.

Yeah, why not? Is it so difficult that maybe the Devs wants to create a Sci-Fi World which the white people are the only allowed to space travel?
The movie Gattaca done something similar I think?

I don't care about these issues in the movies/comics/videogames/books/music/etc. It is fiction.
I just want to enjoy without thinking about it so hard.

I just want to fly a Spaceship a Kill Aliens.

I won't enjoy it if the game is a bad. Not because the Devs wanted all the character to be white.

Finally I am more interested to discuss the scenario that maybe I am right and the game have a world like Gattaca or Starship Troopers.

So I am not allowed to have imagination?
I would love to see a game which everyone is black. I won't mind.
Others would of course.

Then it seems you need to ignore me.
Just because I can accept everything, is the problem it seems.
Sorry for troubling you.

Yeah, I understand.
But people also need to understand that just because a game show a ugly angle of humanity, doesn't mean it doesn't have it purpose.

For example there is a comic series which the Protagonist are Nazis and you follow their victories while represent them as "heroes"

Is it ok to see Nazis as heroes in real life? Of course not!!! It is not ok!
However does it have it purpose to create an interesting comic which shows what could happened if Hitler didn't kill himself at the last moment and created an army of Super Soldier? Of course yes. That is the selling point of the comic.

I am more interested to discuss the possibility of white supremancy in Star Citizen.
However I saw a video and I saw some balck people, so I guess I am wrong.

It is NOT Ok seeing Nazis as Heroes in Real Life.
But as a Comic which explore this idea, it is interesting and different.

Nah, I was wrong because i saw a video and it had diversity in their people inside their ships [even if they weren't the main characters].

Of course i don't agree in the game about White supremancy. Why should I? It make no sense.
I just saying it is interesting to see the game exploring this fact. That all.
But as i said i was wrong and it isn't the case. i think.

Yeah, that why I said in the beggining that maybe it just happened that the Devs wanted to have these specific actors.

*No more posts after this. I assume that's when the ban hammer hit.

With that discussion going all over the place, no wonder they thought you were a (insert five-letters word that starts with "t" here) or something. Maybe you should had suggested that, with a smart exploration of white supremacy in a fictional setting, people could find better ways to fight it off in real life (though I sincerely doubt Star Citizen could achieve that feat).

Yeah, I took a dive too, and damn if ResetEra isn't a wankfest I don't know what it is. Basically threads about "hot" issues are not calls for discussion but for others to comment that they agree with the OP, tip their fedora, take a bow, and leave. Anyone who doesn't do that is expected to be a troll or at the very least a part of the problem. Then each "troll" is reprimanded and people pat each other's backs yet again.

Infuriating, but that's why I went there, wanted some rustled jimmies. :^)

 

[Hawki]

If you'll look carefully, my point was that there is a widespread belief among producers that if you put non-white characters in your media, it won't sell to white audiences. Now, I personally suspect this belief is less true than those producers think it is, but it is an argument against this view of the world where audiences simply don't care about the ethnicity of characters or actors, because I think that view is naive at best, and kind of reprehensible when it's used to argue that it's completely acceptable to only cast white people provided you don't publicly say that the reason you did so is because you hate non-white people, as it is being used here.

Except...I wasn't originally talking about producers.

This thread wasn't even originally about Hollywood.

I'm not disagreeing with your point, just saying it's a tangental one.

The story could have been written for characters of any ethnicity. Heck, it could have been about a family of anthropomorphic raccoons, because it's a fictional made up story and the writer can do anything they want in a fictional made up story.

All true.

The decision to have the characters be white is not a response to any need imposed by the story, it's a calculated, deliberate decision motivated by the need to produce a film which will reach an audience and make money.

And your evidence for this is...?

What you're describing is more along the lines of active racism. Prior, you were discussing subconcious bias.

If there's evidence that RSI actively sought to exclude PoCs, then that's an issue. "Subconcious bias" is an issue, but burden of proof that RSI had it in casting still lies on the accuser. To do that you'd need something along the lines of casting lists, or audition lists, or people coming out and stating that they auditioned but were refused.

I doubt there is intentional racism at work in that decision.

Just above, you were claiming there was.

However, there will at some point have been an intentional, calculated decision about who the target audience demographic were, and how to cast the film in order to appeal to as broad a cross section of those demographics as possible, and they will have specifically decided to cast white actors in order to avoid the appearance that the film was aimed at black audiences because then white people might be turned off from seeing it. I can guarantee you that conversation happened at some point during the making of the film, because when you have a film that costs multi-millions of dollars, you think about stuff like that.

First of all, Star Citizen isn't a film.

Second of all, we know who the target audience demographic is - people who love space sims, particuarly those who grew up on games like Wing Commander. You might be able to wrangle up some demographics for that, but Wing Commander is a product of the 90s. Star Citizen is a product of the 2010s (even if it might be released in the 2020s at this point, if at all). If we're talking about demographics, another guarantee I can give you is that they've shifted.

So, you think subconscious bias is okay and not something we should ever think about, even if it results in profound inequality of outcomes for people who just happen to have different skin colour?

Okay.

No.

I just find Star Citizen very tangental to the discussion. A discussion that, need I remind you, was predicated on a user being banned for saying that he didn't care about race.

Curious that you never had anything to say about that.

If you went to a university course on film or game design, and you tried to argue that we shouldn't examine media as a constructed artform, but instead should merely concern ourselves with checking the story for internal consistency. If you went in and argued that you can't talk about how a film is impacted by its casting decisions, only by what it says about the setting and universe in which it takes place, they would fail you, because that is not a critical approach to media, that is expecting media to have a special exemption from criticism.

First of all, I never argued that media shouldn't be examined as an artform, nor be exempt from criticism.

Second of all, as someone who HAS done university courses on writing, I can assure you that if you turned up and ignored every aspect of storytelling (including internal consistency), you would be dismissed very quickly.

Okay. That's not really an answer. Why would someone want to do that?

Seriously?

Okay, fine.

-Because flight sims were big in the 90s and aren't anymore.

-Because Chris Roberts was involved in the Wing Commander series

-Because he guessed there was still a market for space sims (and judging by how much Star Citizen has received, he was right).

This isn't rocket science.

So.. to cut to the chase rather than just asking a bunch of questions like this, you seem to be assuming that the setting is divorced from the actual creative decisions which bring it into existence, which isn't true. Star citizen is set nearly a thousand years from now, but the target audience of "gamers" lives in the present. If they are going to enjoy the game or its story, it has to communicate to them in terms they can understand and relate to and which are enjoyable for them. That is, after all, why the game is being made, for those "gamers" to enjoy.

...and?

That's true of every piece of media ever made. That isn't saying anything.

Another thing you seem to be assuming is that only explicit, textual themes can convey information, and that "low art" (i.e. any kind of art which is designed purely for escapism or to facilitate a feeling of enjoyment) is incapable of communicating ideas.

Incapable? No. But always present? No. But again, if you're going to be looking for deeper themes and meaning in media, you need to draw elements of that media to make conclusions.

Thus, the fact that Star Citizen is a sequel to Wing Commander and doesn't have an explicit message or theme is taken by you as evidence that it isn't saying anything about race, or about the present day. But stop and look at the trailer for a second. Look at all the things which correspond directly to things which exist today. Human beings look the same (except really white), they present the same, they have similar hairstyles and similar makeup, they are members of a military organisation which is like our military organisations, they wear uniforms which are similar to our uniforms, they have ranks which are identical to our ranks, they speak modern English and have similar speech patterns, they use the same expressions, they have similar gestures to convey similar emotions, their military communications protocol is similar, their interior spaces and architecture have a comprehensible design, the ships themselves look and move like aircraft (or sometimes, like oceangoing ships), their guns look like modern guns, their armour and spacesuits look like modern body armour and flight suits, their HUD and interfaces look like ours, their large spaceships have bridges like our ocean ships, and are controlled with consoles which look like our consoles.

The idea that this is an alien setting, and that nothing here is familiar or reminiscent of our world, and thus that it has nothing to say about our world, is completely missing the very, very obvious. I would think that, in a thousand years, if humanity has survived and is travelling the stars, their society would be like nothing we can imagine, at least as alien to our own as the 11th century, but what is being depicted here basically is our society. Military science fiction as a genre is not divorced from the present at all in terms of its social perspective. It's very much about the present day.

Oh boy...there's a lot to unpack here, but I'll try:

Everything you said is technically true. Certainly the first paragraph is true. However, it's in the second paragraph that you begin to go off the rails. I'll put it to you this way.

"The first paragrah is true. Why? You have a choice of either:

a) "Star Citizen is reflective of our world, and is aiming to be reflective of our world."

b) "Star Citizen looks similar to our world because the people making it grew up in the present world, and it's very difficult to break free of that frame of reference."

I'll focus on one particular element you brought up, which is the language. They're talking English, which isn't out of the realm of the expected technically, either in-universe or out of universe. However, are they speaking 21st century English? Or is the English effectively 'dubbed' for us? Well, to answer that, we can look at the sc-fi genre. A quick look will tell us that the 'English' spoken is rarely, if ever written differently from the time period in which it was written in. So, is the author claiming that English will remain unchanged centuries from now, or that it's simply being written in the style of the time period of creation?

To get back to our options, presumably your answer is a, because you're assuming that every piece of fiction has some kind of inherent meaning and intent behind it. Me? I'm more of a b person.

Starship Troopers isn't really about fighting bugs on Pluto, it's explicitly about the Cold War.

Roughnecks takes place on Pluto. Is that taking place in the Cold War as well?

Snark aside, yes, Starship Troopers (the book) takes place partly on Pluto, and the novel is reflective of the Cold War.

Except...Star Citizen isn't Starship Troopers. Like, at all. You want to know how we know ST is reflective of the Cold War? Because there's a plenthora of evidence within the text and outside the text that backs this statement up. In contrast, what, exactly, is Star Citizen reflecting? What elements from within the work back up this idea, or statements from the author? Because in the case of the latter, I've already given you Chris Roberts's intent. In the case of the former, I can't comment on it (haven't played any of the game), but based on trailers, and reading EU works, I can't dredge up any themes either.

Starship Troopers is aiming to have something to say. There's no evidence that Star Citizen is.

But we also expect them to be fun and comprehensible, and to deal with situations and ideas that we understand and can relate to.

Yes to the first, maybe to the second.

I'll spare the semantics of speculative fiction, but if we're keeping to Star Citizen...okay, situation? Squadron 42/Second Fleet is engaging the vanduul. That situation is only familiar in as much that we have real life navies who fight people. As for ideas...what ideas? What ideas is the story trying to convey? What ideas is the author trying to convey?

Answer to both? Likely none.

Again, authoratorial intent.

The problem already exists. One piece of evidence that it exists is how difficult it seems to be for our media to include or deal with people who are not white.

The idea that the only way to deal with this situation is to shut up and pretend it isn't happening because otherwise you're acknowledging that race matters is a ludicrous kind of victim blaming. Race does matter when you are the victim of racism. Trying to shut people up when they point out the ways in which they are victimized, or trying to defend people from even basic criticism when they fuck up merely because you think they didn't mean it, is not an anti-racist position, it's actually kind of facilitating and aiding racism.

The only person that was "shut up" here was Sweetshark.

Hate racists. Also hate bullies.

Problems you describe are of course worse than being banned from a forum, but I find Star Citizen tangental to it.

Again, actually read this forum, how many people didn't notice nor care. Your position isn't racist. It isn't even reverse-racist. But the behaviour is eerilly similar to actual racists.

So, you cannot have a real conversation (even a one-way conversation) with a fictional character. The artist is not creating a story in order to communicate with a fictional character, they're doing it communicate with the audience.

Or, for it to be consumed by the audience.

Your entire premise appears to lie on the supposition that every piece of media has something insightful to say, or deeper theme to consider. If you want to claim that Star Citizen is doing such a thing, I'd need to see proof.

That's why Star Citizen has all these elements which are identical to things in the modern world. It's not because the fictional characters need it to be that way, it's because the artist (and hopefully the audience) prefers it that way.

Or, because the artist was unable or unwilling to do it differently?

There's a simple explanation as to why SC looks the way it does, one I've already given. And there isn't any kind of deeper meaning behind it.

If the artist and/or audience also prefers everyone in the story to be white, then it isn't really relevant that race doesn't matters in the setting. It matters to the people who actually exist: the artist and the audience.

First of all, you need evidence that the artist actively preferred everyone to be white.

Second of all, the relevance of race (or lack of it) is relevant in the setting, because it allows us to gauge the author's intentions, in addition to the out of universe explanation.

I do, when its relevant.

But when we're talking about things like casting decisions, I'm not going to consider the in-universe perspective because there isn't one.

So, basically, no-one in Star Citizen has any perspective on anything. I'm sure the people in the trailer feel absolutely nothing towards the vanduul for instance.

The characters are not aware that they are being played by actors who were cast for the role.

No shit. And?

In the context of this discussion, constantly bringing up in universe perspectives as a defence of things which are not in-universe is actually really annoying.

And constantly ignoring the nature of the setting is even more annoying.

It isn't even being used as a defence. A defence would be "the UEE has a policy of segregation between fleets" or something like that. All I've pointed out (on the in-universe front, because unlike you, I consider both the in-universe and out of universe perspective) is that there's no evidence of in-universe race issues.

It's derailing, frankly, it's constantly demanding that I look at real things which actually matter from the perspective of a fictional character.

You want to know what's also demanding? Me, being here, going through these asinine arguments.

I will happily debate to you about character motivations and in-universe worldbuilding when the stakes are not whether or not people with the "wrong" colour skin get to appear in media.

Well, those 'stakes' are unlikely to change within our lifetimes. And the idea that PoCs are the "wrong" skin colour has little beyond insinuation here.

I can't change the actions of Hollywood. Except, RSI isn't Hollywood. What I can do at least is provide support for SweetShark.

In short, if you're defending a piece of media from criticism of its authorial or representational practices by pointing out that it is internally consistent, then you've missed the point of the criticism and you aren't really responding to it at all. It's a weak argument.

Fun as it would be to dissect that video, it's barely applicable.

You're equating "defending" the universe with "examining" it. Here, I'll try and explain the difference:

Bob: "I think Star Citizen is racist."

Bill: "Well, the UEE has a policy of racial segregation between fleets."

Ben: "In the setting, there's no evidence of racial bias."

Those are simplified arguments, but here's the distinction. The video is dealing with the "Bills" or the world. In contrast, "Ben" is pointing out that there's nothing to substantiate the claim. Bill is pointing at an active component of worldbuilding, Ben is pointing out the lack of that active component. Bill is trying to excuse racism (like the whole 'chaos god' thing), Ben is simply pointing out the lack of evidence.

Now, I could spend more time being Bill, and point out all the lore in Star Citizen that adds to the idea that it isn't racist, but since this began with the trailer, I may as well stick to it.

You cannot defend the creators of Avatar from allegations of racism by arguing that racism doesn't exist in Avatar, and therefore racism can't be real. That's not the clash of two valid perspectives, it's someone pointing out a potentially serious problem with real life, and being shut down on the basis that if they lived in a fictional setting their argument wouldn't be true.

That's a misconstruction of the argument.

First of all, by itself, looking at Avatar alone wouldn't absolve the creators of being accused of racism. It arguably might not even help, because Avatar never touches on the subject.

Except the argument wasn't accusing the creators of racism per se, it was examining whether Avatar was racist in its implications. To do that, you'd need to consider the following questions:

a) Are the creators racist? Have they undergone any actions or said anything that would suggest it?

b) Is Avatar racist? Is there anything within the work that would suggest it, or deal with the subject?

I can say pretty categorically that the answer to "b" is no. It's harder to comment on "a," but I've never seen anything to indicate that the answer is "yes."

I'm going to use another example, Orson Scott Card. Now, Card has some...unfortunate views on homosexuality that I disagree with. However, are the Enderverse novels homophobic? Or, to shift from Avatar to the Enderverse:

"Is the Enderverse homophobic?"

Well, to answer that, we need to ask:

a) Is Card homophobic?

b) Is there anything in the novels that suggests/approves of homophobia?

Answer to a is yes. Answer to b is, in the scope of my experience, no.

I think a key distinction between us is that in both these scenarios (and others), only the "a" question is relevant to you. But despite your earlier claims, the examination in the article was of Avatar, not of the creators.

I'm also going to repeat a point I made earlier. Watsonian arguments are just for fun. They can help to facilitate enjoyment or understanding of fictional media, but if you bring them out in a university, or any setting where critical thinking is required, it's not going to go well.

As someone who has done short university courses on writing which dealt with "Watsonian arguments," I can only say that, in the scope of my expeience, you're wrong.

You need to be able to separate things that are real and things that are not real, which is not to say you can't have fun imagining that things are real when they aren't, but the boundary needs to stay intact.

I'm quite capable of separating fiction and reality, thank you.

In contrast, I think you're the one who does more blurring, because you're assuming that every element of Star Citizen (and possibly fiction) is reflective of reality.

I would argue that the whole point of the Watsonian and Doylist distinction is to keep reality and fiction separate, not to put fiction on an equal footing to reality.

And I would argue that the point of the distinction is to allow people to better evaluate works critically.

 

[Hawki]

Identity politics have done nothing to unite this country, and are basically a modern form of segregation. When minorities themselves understand this then we are clearly on the wrong path.

While only tangentily related, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a Lebanese friend of mine awhile back.

Basically, there was a stage play named The Rasputin Affair. Here, the supposed daughter of Rasputin, is played by a black actress. He felt that this was a mistake, that the casting should be accurate to the individuals of the time period (how can a black woman reasonably pass herself off as Rasputin's daughter for instance?) My response was basically:

"If they were making a movie and trying to stay true to the time period, I'd get the need for an all-white cast. However, it's a stage play, which will always have a rotating set of actors. Ergo, I think it's acceptable to have non-white actors in this case, because otherwise you're pretty much shutting the door to any non-white in this play from now until the end of time."

I think there's some plays where racial casting is important - Othello, for instance. I think it would be really awkward if you had someone who wasn't black playing Othello, because the issue of race is not only central to his character, but to the play's themes. In contrast, something like TRA isn't dealing with such themes. A critical reading of Othello should be very different from TRA (not that TRA really has any themes worthy of discussion, but whatever).

Like something else I could name...

 

[Terminal Blue]

I'm going to try to cut down and focus on core issues in more detail.

If there's evidence that RSI actively sought to exclude PoCs, then that's an issue. "Subconcious bias" is an issue, but burden of proof that RSI had it in casting still lies on the accuser. To do that you'd need something along the lines of casting lists, or audition lists, or people coming out and stating that they auditioned but were refused.

No, I wouldn't need any of those things. All I need is the people who got cast, and I have those.

None of the starring cast will have auditioned for these roles. At best, they will have been sent early drafts of the script before agreeing. Many were included as stretch goals for the game in order to build hype and encourage more kickstarter backers to get involved on the premise that a big-name actor would be attached to the project. That was before the game even began serious production.

I don't want to labour this, but this is kind of a big point. You seem to think this is just an accident which was outside of anyone's hands, like they rolled the dice and it randomly landed on a bunch of white actors whom they then had to cast because fate was decided and anyway, they were the best people for the job. I'm not denying that from a profit-motivated perspective they were the best people for the job, just like casting the family in A Quiet Place as a white family was, from a profit-motivated perspective, the best option. The question is, did their ethnicity factor into the fact that they were the best people for the job, and the answer is absolutely yes. The answer is yes, in part because that is generally true across all of media, big name actors tend to be overwhelmingly white and when you're selling a game on star power that means you're going to end up with a mostly white cast, and secondly because if it wasn't, then you wouldn't end up with a white starring cast for a project of this size.

I just find Star Citizen very tangental to the discussion. A discussion that, need I remind you, was predicated on a user being banned for saying that he didn't care about race.

Now, I'm not 100% in support of some of the mod decisions made in that thread, and I don't want to take up SweetSark's conduct with you because you're not responsible, but that's not actually what happened..

a) "Star Citizen is reflective of our world, and is aiming to be reflective of our world."

b) "Star Citizen looks similar to our world because the people making it grew up in the present world, and it's very difficult to break free of that frame of reference."

...

To get back to our options, presumably your answer is a, because you're assuming that every piece of fiction has some kind of inherent meaning and intent behind it. Me? I'm more of a b person.

So, if something is using the present world as a frame of reference, do you think that is not a creative decision? Do you think it's not a choice, even if it is truly unintentional?

I don't actually know if the answer is A or B. If I had to guess, I suspect it's probably B. But, for the purpose of this discussion, I don't actually see why it matters. Ultimately, Chris Roberts or whoever designed this setting did so through a series of creative decisions. He could have done all kinds of weird and wonderful things, because he has limitless power within this setting. He could have made anything he wanted, done anything he wanted. If he imported elements from the modern world, even if he didn't really think about it at the time, he was still making creative decisions which shape the character of the world he created. You're with me so far, right?

Let's assume the world of Star Citizen isn't a deliberate allegory for the modern world, and that the UEEN isn't an allegory for modern military organisations, because I don't believe either of these things and I've never said anything which would suggest that I do. Let's assume that the reason Star Citizen's world looks and feels so modern is purely because it's using the modern world as a frame of reference to tell its science fiction story in a way which a modern audience will understand, which is all I've ever implied.

Still with me?

So, you've said yourself that it's difficult to break away from using our world as a frame of reference. I agree, it's difficult, because when you break away from the real world, you have to invent something to fill the gap and find a way to work it into your story, which takes time and conscious effort. So here's a question. Do you think that Chris Roberts took the time and conscious effort it would take to fill in the gap left behind by truly breaking with modern racial politics? (By which I mean not just the presence of active racism, but the general rule in our society that whites tend to be dominant and over-represented in positions of importance or authority). Do you think he actively thought and committed, when writing this game, to the idea that race wasn't going to be a factor in this setting, and thought through all the implications of that, including how it would reflect the makeup of people in positions of power and authority, or did he just assume that race would work the same way it does now?

I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but let's use an example. Ursula LeGuin was one of the best anthropological writers of genre fiction ever. She put meticulous effort into crafting universes and settings which were very, very different from our own world and time. Her novel The Left Hand of Darkness depicts a society in which the inhabitants have no permanent sex, and devotes a lot of time to exploring how this seemingly small change shapes a whole society in ways which must have been thoroughly alien and mind-blowing to readers in 1969. But, she also came back to the work later in her life and acknowledged that she had made some assumptions about sex and gender which reflected limitations in her own perspective. She wrote a book that is still routinely voted one of the best science fiction works of all time nearly 50 years after its publication, and yet she could admit that her work was a product of its time, and that she had been influenced by the society in which she lived when she wrote it. She never tried to claim that it didn't matter, she never tried to shut people down for thinking critically about her work, and she never used the fact that it wasn't an intentional decision on her part as an excuse, because she understood (as we all should) that everything you do when writing fiction is a decision.

Except the argument wasn't accusing the creators of racism per se, it was examining whether Avatar was racist in its implications. To do that, you'd need to consider the following questions:

a) Are the creators racist? Have they undergone any actions or said anything that would suggest it?

b) Is Avatar racist? Is there anything within the work that would suggest it, or deal with the subject?

The two questions you have asked are not capable of answering the question of whether Avatar is racist in its implications, because:

a) Implications do not have to be intentional.

b) Implications can go beyond the self-contained confines of the narrative.

You cannot solve or diagnose every problem of media representation with two questions.

 

[Hawki]

No, I wouldn't need any of those things. All I need is the people who got cast, and I have those.

None of the starring cast will have auditioned for these roles. At best, they will have been sent early drafts of the script before agreeing. Many were included as stretch goals for the game in order to build hype and encourage more kickstarter backers to get involved on the premise that a big-name actor would be attached to the project. That was before the game even began serious production.

You sure? Because I went on the game's Kickstarter page, and it doesn't list any specific actors in its stretch goals. The only one that's mentioned is "celebrity voice acting for Squadron 42; we will bring back at least one favourite from Wing Commander!"

I don't want to labour this, but this is kind of a big point. You seem to think this is just an accident which was outside of anyone's hands, like they rolled the dice and it randomly landed on a bunch of white actors whom they then had to cast because fate was decided and anyway, they were the best people for the job. I'm not denying that from a profit-motivated perspective they were the best people for the job, just like casting the family in A Quiet Place as a white family was, from a profit-motivated perspective, the best option. The question is, did their ethnicity factor into the fact that they were the best people for the job, and the answer is absolutely yes. The answer is yes, in part because that is generally true across all of media, big name actors tend to be overwhelmingly white and when you're selling a game on star power that means you're going to end up with a mostly white cast, and secondly because if it wasn't, then you wouldn't end up with a white starring cast for a project of this size.

If that's the method they used to get the cast (and after checking Kickstarter and Wikipedia, I can't find evidence that it was the process), this is again an ex post facto scenario. If RSI went after the big stars, then the circumstances of them becoming "big stars" was out of RSI's hands long ago.

This point you can start talking about affirmative action if you want, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

So, if something is using the present world as a frame of reference, do you think that is not a creative decision? Do you think it's not a choice, even if it is truly unintentional?

It's technically a choice, but that's a big "technically."

Veering from the present world is very much an active choice. Using the present world as a template? Not so much. In the scope of reading and writing, when one is writing speculative fiction that isn't primarily concerned with worldbuilding, usually it's a case of selecting a few elements, and remaining the same in others.

I don't actually know if the answer is A or B. If I had to guess, I suspect it's probably B. But, for the purpose of this discussion, I don't actually see why it matters.

Because of intention. Or, to use the literary term, authoratorial intent.

So, you've said yourself that it's difficult to break away from using our world as a frame of reference. I agree, it's difficult, because when you break away from the real world, you have to invent something to fill the gap and find a way to work it into your story, which takes time and conscious effort. So here's a question. Do you think that Chris Roberts took the time and conscious effort it would take to fill in the gap left behind by truly breaking with modern racial politics? (By which I mean not just the presence of active racism, but the general rule in our society that whites tend to be dominant and over-represented in positions of importance or authority). Do you think he actively thought and committed, when writing this game, to the idea that race wasn't going to be a factor in this setting, and thought through all the implications of that, including how it would reflect the makeup of people in positions of power and authority, or did he just assume that race would work the same way it does now?

In all honesty, I doubt the question even entered his mind.

Roberts comes across as a game designer first and foremost. Star Citizen was pitched on being a spiritual successor to Wing Commander and similar games. In other words, "gameplay first, story second." That's not to say he can't take a hand in storytelling, but factor in that SC is a game first, and a game set so far in the future that nation-states are apparently irrelevant (to the extent that mankind has a single government), plunging into racial politics is probably very far down on the list.

I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but let's use an example. Ursula LeGuin was one of the best anthropological writers of genre fiction ever. She put meticulous effort into crafting universes and settings which were very, very different from our own world and time. Her novel The Left Hand of Darkness depicts a society in which the inhabitants have no permanent sex, and devotes a lot of time to exploring how this seemingly small change shapes a whole society in ways which must have been thoroughly alien and mind-blowing to readers in 1969. But, she also came back to the work later in her life and acknowledged that she had made some assumptions about sex and gender which reflected limitations in her own perspective. She wrote a book that is still routinely voted one of the best science fiction works of all time nearly 50 years after its publication, and yet she could admit that her work was a product of its time, and that she had been influenced by the society in which she lived when she wrote it. She never tried to claim that it didn't matter, she never tried to shut people down for thinking critically about her work, and she never used the fact that it wasn't an intentional decision on her part as an excuse, because she understood (as we all should) that everything you do when writing fiction is a decision.

Okay, except, according to this (and Wikipedia), the book was directly dealing with gender, where it's directly relevant to the worldbuilding and themes. So, it's quite reasonable to evaluate the work based on those themes. In contrast, I don't see Star Citizen engaging in any themes, period.

So while you can technically evaluate Star Citizen through a racialist lens, it's a completely different kettle of fish from LHoD by the sound of it.

To cite a similar novel that plays with gender (that I have read), take Imperial Radch, where because the language of the world is being 'dubbed,' "she" is the only pronoun used, because the language of the setting doesn't use masculine or feminine pronouns. It's quite reasonable to evaluate that work through the lens of gender. Through the lens of race though? That's much harder to stand on.

The two questions you have asked are not capable of answering the question of whether Avatar is racist in its implications, because:

a) Implications do not have to be intentional.

b) Implications can go beyond the self-contained confines of the narrative.

You cannot solve or diagnose every problem of media representation with two questions.

To address those two points:

a) Implications may not be intentional, but the question as to whether they are makes a world of difference. Unless you want to follow the Death of the Author paradigm, in which case...

b) Implications beyond the confines of the narrative are irrelevant, because by the paradigm, the work exists in a vacuum.

If we assume that the answers to questions a and b (the originals) are still "no," but someone says "it's implied," then that's very shaky ground, because people are going to draw different implications from different things.

Star Citizen itself is an example of this, because we're seeing the same work, and looking at very, very differently. Which would be more interesting to me if I felt that Star Citizen was actually trying to say anything, but whatever.

Works can be interpretive, but there comes a point where the interpretation passes outside the bounds of reasonable doubt.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Veering from the present world is very much an active choice. Using the present world as a template? Not so much. In the scope of reading and writing, when one is writing speculative fiction that isn't primarily concerned with worldbuilding, usually it's a case of selecting a few elements, and remaining the same in others.

So, why exactly does it matter what is and isn't an "active" choice?

Like, we've been going round and round on this issue of intent/"activity", so let me clarify. I don't think being unintentionally or "passively" racist is okay. I don't think it's something you can or should defend. It is better than being actively or intentionally racist, but at the end of the day if you are "passively" tolerating an outcome that prejudices people on the basis of their race, or if you are unintentionally discriminating against people, then you have done something wrong and you can be held to account for that. Even if it's something we all do sometimes and noone is perfect, it doesn't remove the responsibility to try and do better.

I do not need Chris Roberts to start throwing white power signs before I will point out that only casting white people for your game is kind of weird and exclusionary, and that anyone who genuinely feels that race shouldn't matter ought to be concerned. Because as long as the "passive" position is that POC get passed over, race does matter, and is going to keep mattering, until the "passive" position is not filling your game with white people and pretending you didn't notice, but filling your game with a diverse, representative group of people whose narrative role and social position has nothing to do with their ethnicity, and to do it without being aware of having done anything exceptional. We are a long way away from that.

Okay, except, according to this (and Wikipedia), the book was directly dealing with gender, where it's directly relevant to the worldbuilding and themes. So, it's quite reasonable to evaluate the work based on those themes. In contrast, I don't see Star Citizen engaging in any themes, period.

The book is about a diplomatic mission to an alien planet.

It's not directly dealing with gender, because it's not an academic treatise on gender. Gender is a part of the story, just like gender is a part of every story, we just don't notice it because most authors don't significantly deviate from the way gender works in the society they live in.

Squadron 42 has just as much gender in it as the Left Hand of Darkness. Every character has a gender, every character was written to have a gender. There's a tiny moment in the trailer where another character is shown shaking Mark Hamill's character's hand while also clasping his arm. That is a very masculine gesture in our society. If one of those characters had been female, then that gesture would have been replaced (and the characters probably wouldn't have touched, but if they did it would probably have been a hug or something similar and would have indicated that they were emotionally close). In our society, there are specific codes of etiquette which determine when and how men and women can touch each other, which are different from the situations in which men can touch each other. We don't notice how gendered these interactions are, because we all have an inherent understanding of their meaning based on living in this culture.

Anyone who is writing a story about human beings will probably have to deal with gender. They probably won't notice they're doing it, it will just seem natural to give every character a gender and to have them behave accordingly. Often, they'll impose their own cultural assumptions or completely fail to grasp how people of a different gender to their own think or behave, but even if they get it perfectly right, they are still loading their stories with information about gender. LeGuin did not choose to put gender in her story, in her own words, she chose to take gender out of the story. That was the "active" choice, to remove the stuff which was automatic and familiar and made sense. We live in a society where every human being has gender and thus every character in a story has gender. Similarly, every human being has race and so every character in a story has race. If you don't remove these things, if you don't make a conscious effort to strip them out, then there's a good chance they are still there.

 

[Hawki]

Fuck off.

Charming.

Tempting as it is to say "fuck off" back, I'd rather not stoop to your level.

I explained myself pretty damn well, and then I straight up said what I was inferring.

Oh, okay, let's play your game.

Here's your first line:

Of general representation? Okay ... name me one game that has done LGBTQ representation well? Like one.

And then, over 600 words and eight 'quote responses' later, you write:

Intellectual dishonesty is still intellectual dishonesty. Nobody is legitimately asking for one in four people to be East Asian. Whatthey're asking for is why there just so happens to be a creepy culling of various ethnicities in sci-fi media and games. For the same reason that representation of LGBTQ themes and women in videogames and sci-fi is pretty fucked up on a whole.

Here, you shift to a different topic altogether. If you paid the slightest attention to my response, you would see I was responding to the question of LGBT representation, not the question LGBT themes. I quoted "LGBT representation" post, not the "LGBT themes" post.

You can retroactively try and claim you were combining the posts if you want, that's your prerogative. Doesn't make it retroactively true.

Uh huh.

It's not what you wrote though.

No, what I wrote was "To people who've grown up in a world where inter-racial ships/romance isn't an issue, and for whom weren't alive in the Cold War," in response to the question of who wouldn't look at TOS in the same way. Then you go on to play the demographics game.

Then you wrote

"That's quite a few people. Being in your 30s isn't exactly a fantastic margin of the demographic."

Of course, that's you shifting things (again) from me pointing out that people who weren't alive in the Cold War wouldn't look at TOS in the same way, then you play the demographics game as if that invalidates the experience.

I disagree. If a movie uses black stereotypes or tropes you can totally break that down.

Except Star Citizen isn't relying on stereotypes, so...

Does it need to to have religious themes? So much of the Bible is itself allegorical.

Funny how the Bible becomes more and more allegorical over time as our understanding of the world improves...

Would one say it has U.S. Civil War themes?

None.

What exactly of the U.S. civil war does Starcraft try to retell?

None. I never said it did.

I think, again, you missed my point entirely, that drawing on elements of the civil war doesn't make it a retelling of the civil war. Here, let me post again:

The terran campaign of the original StarCraft takes inspiration from the US Civil War. That doesn't make it a retelling, even if names and places are literally taken from it (the Confederacy experiences its death knell at the Battle of New Gettysburg for instance).

Do you need help reading? Did you miss the line where I explicitly said THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT A RETELLING? That I was arguing AGAINST IT BEING A RETELLING

Do you legitimately believe that Mengsk is sci-fi Lincoln?

No.

What role does the UED have to retelling the U.S. Civil War?

Do images work as embeds? I'm curious, because I really want to do the Picard face palm.

I said "original StarCraft." That should have made it clear I was referring to just StarCraft, not Brood War. Of course the UED isn't relevant to any possible Civil War analogy because the UED doesn't even show up in the same game. That's like treating the events of Cataclysm as part of the same story as Homeworld.

 

[Erttheking]

Identity politics have done nothing to unite this country, and are basically a modern form of segregation. When minorities themselves understand this then we are clearly on the wrong path.

You're technically right. For the wrong reasons. See, some people seem to think that identity politics only exists within minorities. They act like there aren't Christian identity politics, white identity politics, male identity politics, 1% identity politics. They are. And frankly, I see minority identity politics reacting to these identity politics more than popping out of nowhere. Because it wasn't like minorities were just walking around someday and decided to base a good part of their identity on their skin color for no reason whatsoever.

I don't know about you, but I've felt more alienated by the demand that everything bow towards Christianity (on the dollar, on the coins, in pledges to the state, in the pledge I have to hear every time I'm at work, the President of the United States screaming about it) than black people wanting more respect and representation.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Roughnecks takes place on Pluto. Is that taking place in the Cold War as well?

Snark aside, yes, Starship Troopers (the book) takes place partly on Pluto, and the novel is reflective of the Cold War.

Except...Star Citizen isn't Starship Troopers. Like, at all. You want to know how we know ST is reflective of the Cold War? Because there's a plenthora of evidence within the text and outside the text that backs this statement up. In contrast, what, exactly, is Star Citizen reflecting? What elements from within the work back up this idea, or statements from the author? Because in the case of the latter, I've already given you Chris Roberts's intent. In the case of the former, I can't comment on it (haven't played any of the game), but based on trailers, and reading EU works, I can't dredge up any themes either.

Starship Troopers is aiming to have something to say. There's no evidence that Star Citizen is.

Hey, fun fact about Starship Troopers as all of us who read the book know.

Johnnie Rico is actually Juan "Johnnie" Rico [http://starshiptroopers.wikia.com/wiki/Juan_Rico_(novel)], a Filipino teen.

Of course, many people don't even know there was a book and figured Rico looked like Casper van Dien [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000680/].

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

And then, over 600 words and eight 'quote responses' later, you write:

And I asked how any of your examples were LGBTQ representation? What they actually did?

Here, you shift to a different topic altogether. If you paid the slightest attention to my response, you would see I was responding to the question of LGBT representation, not the question LGBT themes. I quoted "LGBT representation" post, not the "LGBT themes" post.

'Shifting the conversation' as opposed to actually clarifying a position. Stay on target.

You can retroactively try and claim you were combining the posts if you want, that's your prerogative. Doesn't make it retroactively true.

How is it my 'prerogative' at all? I mean if you're telling me 'it's okay', why debate it?

"That's quite a few people. Being in your 30s isn't exactly a fantastic margin of the demographic."

Of course, that's you shifting things (again) from me pointing out that people who weren't alive in the Cold War wouldn't look at TOS in the same way, then you play the demographics game as if that invalidates the experience.

And? I was writing it beause I was fucking confused by what you meant 'alive during the Cold War' ... what that actually had to do with the point and so far you still haven't made that clear.

Except Star Citizen isn't relying on stereotypes, so...

No, it just seems to show a world where there is a creepy culling of ethnicities in the far future, and it feels weird. I don't have such a big issue with it in, say, Star Wars apparent OKH style meet and greet between Vader and the assumed admirals, generals and detachment commanders of an expeditionary force in Episode 4 precisely because they were drawing upon a sense of a sinister humano-centric empire that might be reflective of certain group of people in a not too distant past to the first released movie.

Now one can argue whether this itself was intentional or not, but then again no one is debating the point precisely because that was then and this is now and as far as I can tell Squadron 42 is not supposed to be channeling a sense of sinister sterilization of race and power dynamics.

Funny how the Bible becomes more and more allegorical over time as our understanding of the world improves...

Relevance? These stories were allegorical when they were made as well. You know, obvious parables.

None.

Then it's not a point in contention. Why fucking bring it up? Clearly Homeworld had something to say about mythology and religious construction and gave it a sci-fi coat of paint to human stories on our planet and the nature of prophecy, miracle, and traditions of Earth's history and pre-history.

I think, again, you missed my point entirely, that drawing on elements of the civil war doesn't make it a retelling of the civil war. Here, let me post again:

The terran campaign of the original StarCraft takes inspiration from the US Civil War. That doesn't make it a retelling, even if names and places are literally taken from it (the Confederacy experiences its death knell at the Battle of New Gettysburg for instance).

And I'm telling you that's not what Homeworld does.

And thank you for illustrating why I personally separated simply tone or feel (inspiration) from retelling. In a lot of ways due to the longest tradition at the core of all religions being often verbally passed down from generation to generation abnd reinforced by symbolism, allegory and tradition.

Starcraft takes colours of the past, but it does not seel to tell a Civil War-era story.

Homeworld takes Middle Eastern religions and seeks to tell a sci-fi story shaped by its eschatology. The intention is clearly different than in Starcraft.

In the same way Verhoeven does not seek to retell Heinlein's story, rather use it as if to illustrate a depiction of Heinlein's argument of the way to peace being a militaristic society due to soldiers somehow knowing better than common people the nature of war's desolation is hilariously wrong. This is why I don't find it problematic when Verhoeven purposefully seeks to whiteify the entire cast and draw allegory to incredibly problematic aspects of Europe's history of fascism. It was literally his intention to do this, and those intentions came from a better place than Heinlein's given it's hard to not notice the effects American colonization and militarism did to the Filipinos.

Verhoeven is purposefully calling out American foreign policy and jingoistic right-wing militarism as inherently racist, non-descript to even the worst enemiesof collective humanity of history's past, and that pretending otherwise is a joke. It is so clearly a self-aware piece of anti-propaganda-propaganda against a society that refuses to embrace sensitivity, restraint, and common acceptance of our mutual humanity over reactionary threats of violence and the false virtues of nationalism and the military-industrial complex.

People should really read more of Mark Twain...

Verhoeven takes inspiration from the source material only, and only insofar as to find it problematic and illustrate why using it.

 

[Avnger]

Identity politics have done nothing to unite this country, and are basically a modern form of segregation. When minorities themselves understand this then we are clearly on the wrong path.

You're technically right. For the wrong reasons. See, some people seem to think that identity politics only exists within minorities. They act like there aren't Christian identity politics, white identity politics, male identity politics, 1% identity politics. They are. And frankly, I see minority identity politics reacting to these identity politics more than popping out of nowhere. Because it wasn't like minorities were just walking around someday and decided to base a good part of their identity on their skin color for no reason whatsoever.

I don't know about you, but I've felt more alienated by the demand that everything bow towards Christianity (on the dollar, on the coins, in pledges to the state, in the pledge I have to hear every time I'm at work, the President of the United States screaming about it) than black people wanting more respect and representation.

Hell, the entire "white" identity was literally invented as a way to reinforce the ideals behind slavery and continuing discrimination against others.